James Gurney

This daily weblog by Dinotopia creator James Gurney is for illustrators, plein-air painters, sketchers, comic artists, animators, art students, and writers. You'll find practical studio tips, insights into the making of the Dinotopia books, and first-hand reports from art schools and museums.

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or by email:gurneyjourney (at) gmail.comSorry, I can't give personal art advice or portfolio reviews. If you can, it's best to ask art questions in the blog comments.

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All images and text are copyright 2015 James Gurney and/or their respective owners. Dinotopia is a registered trademark of James Gurney. For use of text or images in traditional print media or for any commercial licensing rights, please email me for permission.

However, you can quote images or text without asking permission on your educational or non-commercial blog, website, or Facebook page as long as you give me credit and provide a link back. Students and teachers can also quote images or text for their non-commercial school activity. It's also OK to do an artistic copy of my paintings as a study exercise without asking permission.

Sunday, July 29, 2012

Yesterday was the last day of the annual convention of the Association of Medical Illustrators in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. I attended the gathering as a guest lecturer and workshop presenter.

(Above: Bert Oppenheim) The AMI includes professional visualizers who create artwork that shows what is going on inside the body. The artwork must be scientifically accurate and clear in its explanatory purpose, for people's lives often depend on it.

The images appear in textbooks, magazines, courtrooms, museums, digital readers, and doctor's offices. These days, most of the work is digital, including 2D, 3D, and animation. About half of the 2000 trained practitioners are self-employed.

The training includes rigorous work not only in traditional and digital rendering techniques, but also in dissection and an array of life science studies. It's a very interesting field for young artists to consider if they are looking for something that combines art and science.

Saturday, July 28, 2012

Congratulations to all the people who prepared London for the successful opening ceremonies of the summer olympics.

Here’s a sketch I did of Big Ben back in 1985, when it was covered in scaffolding. (I’m a huge fan of scaffolding.)

Here’s a close-up detail. When I’m drawing a subject like this, which is infinitely complex, I try to be accurate but impressionistic, suggesting detail with somewhat abstract strokes drawn in perspective.

I used two hardnesses of graphite pencil, HB and 2B, as well as a little bit of light gray ink wash.
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On Monday I'll be giving a talk on composition at the Academy of Realist Art in Toronto. July 30, 2012 @ 6:30 pm.

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Fortunino Matania was an Italian-born artist who created historical illustrations for the English magazines of the World War 1 era. Here's a picture he did of Captain John Smith captured by Indians.

Matania often rendered his pictures on a gray-colored board, which allowed him to develop the darks in pencil and ink wash, and to add the white areas with white gouache. The bright white of the pillow behind the sick girl really glows, and the solid black of the standing woman's dress provides an eye-catching shape behind the seated man.

This one is called "Cagliostro: The Law of Trane" from Britannia & Eve. The tone paper technique is helpful for developing compositional sketches or for creating relatively quick renderings of complex scenes.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

According to an art history book published in 1904*, Ernest Meissonier (1815-1891) would be remembered as the greatest painter of the nineteenth century. His paintings certainly sold for the highest amounts at the time.

Other artists of Meissonier's time reflected on his greatness, though with amusing qualifications. Sir John E. Millais said, “He was more complete than any Dutchman.” Kenyon Cox said he was “The greatest genre painter of any age.”

A book called "Modern French Masters*" from 1896 begins the section on Meissonier this way: "In Paris, a few years ago, twenty or more well-known artists were dining at the house of a prominent art dealer. During the evening the question came up: "Who, at the end of the 20th century, will be thought of as the greatest painter of our period?"

They posed the question fully aware of the fickleness of changing fashions, of the tendency of one generation to crush the idols of those that came before.

So who did this panel decide would rule 100 years later as the greatest painter of the nineteenth century?

"The verdict of the jury was nearly unanimous that the paintings most sought after toward the close of the twentieth century would be by Bouguereau and Meissonier."

They chose Bouguereau because "his work is nearly perfect in its draftsmanship, the nude will always occupy a high place in art, and time will mellow much that is rather objectionable in its coloring."

Why Meissonier's pictures? Because they "are as nearly perfect technically as human skill can make them, because they are masterful in their knowledge, and because they are true in appearance."

Suppose we were to assemble a panel of experts today that included art dealers, art historians and artists, and suppose we were to pose the same question: Which artist of the twentieth century will be regarded as the greatest by people of the year 2100?

It would be difficult for such a panel to come to any consensus. Before any names could be nominated, the criteria would come into dispute. How will future generations measure greatness? By what measure would we evaluate greatness today? No broadly based contemporary art panel would agree that skill, knowledge, truth, and perfect draftsmanship are valid yardsticks.

The only objective criterion at a given moment is the economic yardstick of auction prices. But that's not based on any enduring principle, and the economic gauge is influenced by elusive market factors such as scarcity and promotion. Are artists great because they are expensive, or expensive because they are great? In any event, Meissonier and Bouguereau are proof that what has risen will fall, and what has fallen will rise.

If we rule out popularity or market value, then which criteria could we use? Beauty? Too subjective. The ability to transmit emotion? Too personal. How about: Audacity? Innovation? Novelty? Influence on others?

Perhaps we have to accept that the art world will be, for our lifetimes, divided into warring tribes, each with a different set of values. This state of affairs makes the job difficult, I imagine, for art juries, curriculum planners, critics, granting agencies, and museum acquisition committees.
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Sunday, July 22, 2012

Photo retouching makes it possible to beef up a guy's physique or give a woman a wasp waist. The resulting images of models in magazines present impossible ideals for people. (Image above from Glamour magazine)

The teen glamour magazine called Seventeen has made a pledge to its readers about how it will and won't digitally manipulate photos of young models.
The magazine responded to an online petition by 14-year-old Julia Bluhm, who observed that many girls in her ballet class complained that they were fat.

Seventeen's pledge to its readers says that it will never change a girl's body or face shape, and will change only incidental details, like "flyaway hair," a confusing background, or an out-of-place bra strap. They set up a special blog that takes readers behind the scenes at photo shoots and shows the images before and after retouching.

The magazine "Glamour" has also responded to criticism, polling its readers about what how much retouching is good, and they produced a video where women answer the question "What makes you feel good about your body?"

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Elements in a picture look more natural and three-dimensional when they're overlapped. This painting by Henry Herbert LaThangue (1859-1929) suffers from a lack of overlapping. We see the shape of each goose pretty much in its entirety, just touching the next one.

LaThangue commits the same foul in this picture, which is full of tangencies. A tangency is a point of contact between one shape and another so that they just touch without overlapping. The front goat seems to be nibbling the leg of the one behind it, and the third one back is nibbling the second one's shoulder. The effect of both pictures is awkward, flat, and spotty.

This painting by Charles Sprague Pearce (1851-1914) is much more successful in this respect. The sheep form an interesting mass, yet still have individual identity. Some of them are hidden behind the shepherd or partly cropped off the edge.

Friday, July 20, 2012

The poll results are now final for the crowd-sourced list of best classic art instruction books. I asked you to nominate your favorite how-to books that were older than 50 years, and then you voted in a poll.

The top three slots are occupied by Andrew Loomis (1892-1959), whose drawing is at right. Loomis attended the Art Students League in New York, where he studied under George Bridgman. (Bridgman himself has two books himself in the top ten.) Loomis did a variety of story and cover illustration, but his upbeat, glamorous style was especially well suited to advertising illustration. He taught at the American Academy of Art in Chicago.

Loomis's books are practical, encouraging, well-illustrated, and clearly written, though some people have faulted the figure drawings for a lack of ethnic diversity—there really are a lot of 1940s glamour nudes in high heels.

All of these books were huge favorites of mine when I was an art student, except Successful Drawing, which I was unaware of at the time.

Enrollment will be limited to 15. Max will give individual critiques and studio time with live models. Garin's atelier is a congenial place to be during the work sessions and during the off-time, when students can bond around good food and conversation. There are rooms in Garin's historic house to accommodate some of the students.

Max and Garin have asked me to come by for an evening to talk a little about multiple figure composition.

Sir Edwin Landseer (1802-1873) was the premiere painter of dog portraits of the nineteenth century. Jacob Bell, aware of Landseer's reputation, commissioned him to paint his favorite bloodhound, Countess. But Landseer took a long time getting around to the commission.

One Sunday evening the dog lost her footing on a second floor balcony and fell to her death. The next morning, Bell carried the carcass of his beloved pet to Landseer's door and knocked. He knew that Landseer was busy and hated to be disturbed.

Seeing the dead dog, Landseer declared, "This is an opportunity not to be lost. Go away. Come back Thursday at two o'clock."

Landseer arranged the dead dog in a sleeping pose as he was accustomed to do with his anatomical studies. When Bell returned at the appointed time, the portrait was finished.

Richard Ormond, in his well-illustrated biography of Landseer, observes that "There is more than a hint of rigor mortis in the dog's stiff legs, and a general air of decrepitude not inconsistent with death. The atmosphere of the picture, with its dramatic contrasts of light and dark, is somber and haunting. Landseer's sympathy with his subject has an elegiac quality, a lament for death and old age in general."